News from the Bala Golf Club Greens Department

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Month: October 2014

A huge heartfelt thank you goes out to all of the members that took the time this past Monday afternoon to play (sic) golf with employees. All the departments were represented, except the business office ( lets all work on this for next years event, it would be great for the ladies to join us) and judging by the smiles and laughter in the grill room after golf, a great time was had by all!!

I’d like to congratulate the winning team of Honey Friedman, Dr. Herb Cohn, John Ecclestone and Green Dept. employee Jeff ( I will be laying him off next October to prevent a three peat) Schmidt.

I also would like to thank Chris Barletta for setting up the event, Jennifer ( who will be joining us next year) Gravinese for help spreading the word, and Chef Dan for making the pizza and salad………… appear!

Please excuse my absent from the blog over the last 30+ days. As most of you know the golf schedule has been very intense with multiple outings and golf events filling the calender. This has required the Green Dept to focus on conditioning and not working on any projects. But that all changes today as we, well really our Arborist, will begin removing over a dozen trees throughout the golf course.

The two main reasons for these removals are tree health or lack of it and turf health. The largest impact that you will notice will be around the large practice putting green as 5 of the largest evergreens will be removed. The older white pines have reached their useful life but more importantly is their presence have created a less than favorable growing environment for the green. we constantly babysit the back and right side of the green every year. A few years we have been successful, most we are not. This has resulted in multiple attempts of sodding out the areas of turf lose, changing the grade of the surface, and other cultural practices that have made little or no difference. I feel we have exhausted all of our options with the exception of tree removal. The USGA agrees with us also on this plan.

Removing these trees will also provide an added benefit of expanding the practice area in the future. Both the Green and Construction Committee’s have discussed the possibility of expanding/combining the practice putting green(s) along with adding a larger, multi-station warm up cage. Your thoughts on this idea or another use of this area would be much appreciated.

An other tree to be removed for putting green health will be the silver maple behind 16 green. This tree causes the back of the green stress multiple times per year. Its mere size causes shade and its aggressive roots draw excessive amounts of water from under the green. It has to go!! The removal will also benefit the tee on 17. Right now the right side of the tee is hardly used because the maple interferes with the line of flight of a ball leaving the tee. So its really a win-win situation for the both the tee and green.

silver maple on the left

From 17 tee

All other trees to be removed are either in poor health or were severely damaged from the winter storms last year. The Arborist will also be trimming back trees along the left side of 3 fairway, at 3 green, 11 tee and 17 tee. This is all being done for playability reasons.

I thank you in advance for your patience while this work is being completed and welcome your comments on the work being done.